


by means of heat and time

by journalofimprobablethings



Series: taako and lucretia make me sad, y'all [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: ? Sort of?, Angus McDonald and Taako Bonding, Bittersweet, Cooking Lessons, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, Light Angst, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, TAZ November Celebration, and there must be times when he mourns her and their old relationship, lucretia doesn't just lose taako after story and song, taako loses lucretia too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27700865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/journalofimprobablethings/pseuds/journalofimprobablethings
Summary: Angus reminds Taako so much of Lucretia, sometimes, it hurts.It’s the intensity of his focus, the earnestness with which he watches Taako’s every move whenever they have a lesson. That endless curiosity.Today, Taako is teaching Angus how to make French onion soup.Taako is teaching Lucretia how to make French onion soup.
Relationships: Angus McDonald & Taako, The Director | Lucretia & Taako
Series: taako and lucretia make me sad, y'all [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2128257
Comments: 14
Kudos: 47





	by means of heat and time

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you start to write a simple scene of Taako teaching Lucretia how to cook and suddenly the cooking turns into a metaphor for Many Other Things.
> 
> (Also I am firmly of the belief that cooking is a form of mundane magic and it felt right to give Taako some of that philosophy as well.)
> 
> Originally posted on Tumblr for TAZ November Celebration Day 23 - Cooking.

Angus reminds Taako so much of Lucretia, sometimes, it hurts.

It’s the intensity of his focus, the earnestness with which he watches Taako’s every move whenever they have a lesson. That endless curiosity.

Today, Taako is teaching Angus how to make French onion soup.

_-_

_Taako is teaching Lucretia how to make French onion soup._

-

“The key,” he says, “is to cook the onions low and slow. You get impatient, crank up the heat, the onions will scorch and get bitter and your soup will be ruined. You got that?”

“Got it,” Angus says. His tongue pokes out between his teeth as he carefully writes down Taako’s instructions.

-

_Lucretia nods, scribbling furiously in her notebook._

_“What are you doing?”_

_“Writing this down.”_

_“This isn’t part of the mission, Creesh. It doesn’t have to go in the log.”_

_“But I want to remember it.”_

-

“You gonna remember this, Ango?”

“Yes, sir.”

Taako sets Angus to chopping onions while he gathers the rest of the ingredients. He shows Angus how to hold the knife at the base of the blade for better control, how to cut off the root end of the onion in order to have a flat surface to balance it on before cutting it in half.

-

_“Are you sure you want to trust me with this knife, Taako?” Lucretia asks. “I don’t have the best track record with this sort of thing.” She looks down at her hand, and the place on her fingers where the scar should be from a knife slipped while peeling potatoes._

_“You’ll be fine. Just take it slow, and curl your fingers in so your knuckles act as a guide for the knife. Like this.”_

-

Angus looks excited and terrified in equal measure as he takes the chef’s knife and slowly, carefully, begins to slice the onions.

“Why does this feel scarier than magic, sir?”

-

_“I’m more scared of this knife than I am of half the spells I’ve learned,” Lucretia says._

_She bites her lip in concentration as she slowly, carefully, slices the onions._

_-_

“You’re just not used to it yet. You’ll get it.”

The onions are sliced, tossed into a pan with an obscene amount of butter. (“Butter makes everything taste better,” Taako says.) Angus hops up to sit on the counter next to the stove, watches Taako as he stirs.

“Sir, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why are we having cooking lessons today instead of magic lessons? I’m glad to learn this, too,” he says quickly. “I was just wondering.”

-

_Lucretia stands next to him at the stove, leaning on her elbow to peer into the pot at the slowly reducing pile of onions._

_“Even without your transmutation, cooking is a kind of magic, isn’t it?” she says._

-

“Cooking is magic, too, Ango,” Taako says. “Transmutation by means of heat and time. Turns this pile of tearjerkers into sweet, sweet caramelized goodness.”

Angus peers down at the mountain of onions in the pan.

“If it’s transmutation, sir, couldn’t you just magic them? Then we could have soup now instead of in a couple hours!”

Taako shrugs. “I could, I guess. But they don’t taste the same. It loses something. Some things, it’s just worth taking the time to do it right.”

This soup, they do right.

Forty minutes later, the pile of white onions has reduced to a mess of deeply browned, caramel perfection. Angus steals one from the pan, and his eyes go wide when he tastes it.

-

_Lucretia tastes an onion from the pot and closes her eyes for a second in sheer pleasure._

_“Taako, this is–_

-

–delicious, sir!”

“What did I tell you, Ango? Magic.”

They deglaze the pan with white wine (“don’t worry, Agnes, all the alcohol cooks off”), add broth and thyme and a bay leaf, and leave the soup to bubble on the stove.

“Is it almost ready, sir? I’m–

-

– _starving.“_

_“Patience, young grasshopper. It’ll be ready soon.”  
_

_“I never would have thought that you would have the patience for something like this,” Lucretia says._

_“All my patience goes into my cooking,” Taako says. “I don’t have any left for anything else.”_

-

For the final step, Taako shows Angus how to float thick pieces of toast on top of the bowls of soup, piled with cheese, and slip them under the broiler to melt.

And finally, finally, they are sitting at the table with their bowls, topped with golden, molten cheese. Angus blows carefully on his spoonful before he tastes it, and then lets out an involuntary sound of delight.

“This is amazing, sir!”

“Of course it is. We made it.”

Angus grins.

-

_"Look at that,” Taako says as he pulls the bowls out from under the broiler._

_Lucretia takes a deep sniff and grins, and her smile could light up the room._

_-_

They are about halfway through their soup when Angus asks,

“Can I take some of this to the Director? She’s been working late a lot and I think she forgets to eat.”

Taako’s spoon goes still, and he looks down at his bowl.

“You don’t have to call her that anymore, Angus.”

“I know. It just feels strange to call her anything else.”

Taako laughs softly. He thinks of all the names he used have for Lucretia–Lucy, Luce, Creesh, Keesha, Lucy-loo. Do any of them fit now?

“Yeah.”

Angus hesitates, pushing his toast down under the surface of his soup, then letting rise back to the top. 

“Taako, do you…do you think you’ll ever be friends again?”

Taako sighs. Angus has always had a talent for asking the hard questions. “I don’t know, Ango. It’s like the soup, you know? It’s just going to take time.”

He pauses, his mind on a different kitchen, a different cooking lesson. 

“Go ahead and take her some,” he says finally. “She likes French onion soup.”

-

_Taako and Lucretia sit at the kitchen table with their bowls of soup. Everyone else is still out on recon missions, so it’s just the two of them._

_Lucretia blows on her spoonful of soup—_ just like Angus, or he is just like her— _and takes a bite. She laughs._

_“That is some damn fine transmutation magic.”_

_“That’s how we do,” Taako says, and digs into his own bowl._

_-_

Angus appears at Lucretia’s office door, holding a bowl covered with a cloth carefully in both hands. She looks up at the sound of his footsteps and smiles when she sees him.

“Madam Director—I mean, Lucretia, ma’am. Taako and I made you some transmutation magic!” Angus uncovers the bowl with a dramatic flourish that would make Taako proud. “Otherwise known as French onion soup.”

He doesn’t understand why Lucretia starts to laugh, and then almost immediately starts to cry.

**Author's Note:**

> Did I have to google "how to make French onion soup" while writing this to get the steps right? Yes.  
> Did I originally pick French onion soup as the dish because I just listened to Duck Newton wax poetic on that topic in Amnesty?...possibly also yes.
> 
> Thanks for reading!! Kudos and comments make my day, and come say hi on tumblr at journalofimprobablethings


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